Black Lightning
by Urwen
Summary: After the destruction of London, Seras finds Alucard on top of St Paul's gloating. Manga-based. Warning: Tentacles and the like, spoilers for manga.


**Black Lightning**

London.

London, once capital of the Empire on which the Sun Never Set.

London, fair white bloom on the ageing jasmine of the United Kingdom.

London, Dun, Castle, with overtones of hill-fort, of Ludd, or Lear if you are of an amateur dramatic inclination.

The bright lights of Soho, the mysterious echelons of the Temple and the Financial District. The stately pleasure gardens of Kensington. Camden, gay and mostly violently intoxicated. Brixton, impregnated with the mysterious scents of the East. The dark streets of Whitechapel, the great Fortress of Battersea Power Station. St Paul's. That building that one is forced to describe as a 'gherkin' or comprehend the possible meaning of the other thing it resembles penetrating the skyline.

A smoking ruin.

Again.

1666. 1940. Now. Integra's eyes narrowed. It was simply not to be tolerated.

'Seras?'

'Yes, my master?'

'Find Alucard. After this, he will need to be restrained.'

'Yes, my master.'

Seras flew, as a streak of black lightning, across the smoking city, searching for her master's mind. It wasn't too hard to find, a swirling vortex of black terror-inducing hatred and horrible glee. Before… before the battle, that mass of blackness would probably have terrified her. Now it incited a slightly disturbing eagerness inside her. Hadn't they won the war? Weren't their enemies crushed beneath their feet. Hadn't she destroyed that tattooed woman who dared to challenge her and devoured her? Yes, she was a war goddess, a destroyer of worlds, a force of nature that would crush anything beneath her heel. Down in the city, the survivors struggled around like ants, and she flew above them free as the wind. She was their superior, their overlord, the…

_Don't you think you're getting a little above yourself, cher?_

Yes, wasn't she getting a little above herself? No, worse, she was letting herself become a monster. That mustn't happen. She must remember who she was. It was the influence of her master, sated with blood and battle his aura of evil spreading out and touching her mind. She must not let him overcome her. She had been fawning after him like a whipped dog for far too long. She homed in on the centre of the cloud and rematerialised.

She stood on a high blacony. The wind whipped through her short blonde hair, carrying the scent of burning from far below. The nighted river wound below her, snakelike and black. To the southwest, the truncated ends of Westminster Bridge jutted out over the water like a dismembered dinosaur. To the south, the Millennium Wheel stood, shrouded in the silvered fragments of a defeated zeppelin. Seras turned to see why she was stood up so high. Behind her, Sir Christopher Wren's graceful dome curved higher still, culminating in a tower topped with a cross. To her right, the twin clock towers framed the view to the west. One of them was damaged, missed a chunk of masonry from the left hand side. Running her hand along the guard rail, she walked around the balcony, towards where the he sat, perched in a corvine manner upon the edge outside the rail, with one booted foot resting on the head of a marble column. He did not turn to look at her.

'Wonderful night, isn't it, police girl?'

Involuntarily, she gritted her teeth. How dare he sit there and proclaim it a wonderful night? Hundreds, maybe thousands were dead, the capital city wrecked, Sir Integra injured, and Walter missing.

_Don't forget me! _

And Pip, that sweet man… he was.. No, better not to think of him. It was too soon.

'Our master commands that we return to her.' Seras said, icily.

He turned to face her and grinned. Beneath the surface of his body, things moved. Seras could not prevent herself from flinching a little when she saw that.

'Our master?' He raised an eyebrow. 'Yes, of course.' He turned to face the city again. 'Is it not beautiful, police girl? The carnage, the destruction, the glorious aftermath of battle, the blood in the rivers and upon the land. And we, the victors, survey it all, our foe vanquished and cast down into hell, where they belong. Is it not the true justice! Are we, who have taken this great power upon ourselves, are we not the chosen ones of God? Are we not the instrument of vengeance, the punishers of wrongdoing, the very angels of destruction?'

Seras regarded him with hooded eyes. 'People are dead.'

'What did I tell you in Brazil, police girl?'

'There are people who died who did not come to fight. Innocent people.'

'When you have existed as long as I, you will know there are no innocents. You will look down at the lighted houses and know that inside each one crawl sinful worms. Lying, cheating, betraying neighbours, friends, family. They fill their lives with grasping and whining, never satisfied, only filling their bellies and building their piles of rubbish to sit upon and raise themselves up a little above the other worms so that they can reach for more, more, more.'

'I hope I don't live that long.'

Alucard turned again to regard Seras and there was madness in his red eyes, bloodlust and bright unholy light. He did not grin. His mouth was a thin line and his hair waved in the wind with an unholy life of it's own.

'Who are you?' He said.

Seras blinked.

'You look like the police girl. You smell like the police girl. Indeed, there is a lot of her about you.' He flowed sinuously over the marble rail, some parts moving slower than others, as if he wasn't quite being held together properly, and stood on the other side, facing her fully. 'Call me master, and then I shall know.'

Seras' lips tried to form the first 'm'.

_You don't have to do that. You should not call anyone master unless you think they are worthy to serve. Or possibly if they are paying you a lot._

I shouldn't call anyone master who isn't worthy. Like Sir Integra is worthy.

_Oui. Is he worthy?_

Seras looked at the thing before her. The inhuman thing that exuded a hellish energy, the thing that laughed gleefully over slain humans and killed as if it was a child pulling the wings off flies.

'No.'

Alucard's face split into a grin again. This was not the 'haha, time to eat someone' grin, nor was it the 'this looks interesting' grin. It was the 'I'm not entirely certain what's going on and am grinning to make it look like I am' grin, the grin that wasn't properly mirrored in his eyes, however hard he tried.

'You are not the police girl.' He said. 'Who are you?'

'Seras Victoria.' Seras replied.

At this, he broke into earsplitting, mind-grating laughter. Seras stood quietly until it finished.

'No, you are still the same police girl. I was mistaken.' He shook his head.

'You disgust me.' Seras said, turning away. He knew Sir Integra was expecting him back now. She had really only told Seras to find him, which she had done.

'Who have you eaten, police girl?' Alucard said, behind her. 'It took you long enough. Stupid girl, I was beginning to think you would never get around to it.'

The anger welled up inside her. She flew like lightning and, he, unable to fathom that she could ever do such a thing, did not move in time. It wasn't so much a slap as a claw. Her fingers had become sharp with anger and gouged four strokes across his face. The wounds healed slowly, but the shock on his face did not. She stood before him, glaring, with his blood falling from her finger tips and then she began to laugh at his amazement, a bubbling cackle from deep inside her, and she licked the blood from her forefinger. To Alucard, her form shimmered and in its place stood three, pale-faced harpies, mocking him, pointing red-nailed fingers at him and laughing in screeches amongst themselves. No, he would not stand for this. He was the god of war, he had crushed the germanic hordes, the vampiric might of the Letzt Battalion. He would not be laughed at by a little blonde police girl.

The girl smiled and folded her arms. 'I'll be with Sir Integra if you feel like coming down off your bloody pedestal.' She said. And then she swept a little curtsey. 'Master.' Then she spun on her heel and began to walk away.

How dare she.. how dare she walk away… How dare that woman, she to whom he had given immortality how dare she walk away from him? He did not bother with guns, or tentacles. With a furious roar, he pounced, losing substance as he did so, becoming a roiling, black raging mass, spinning her body as he clutched at it and pinning her beneath him. She hissed and spat and clawed, becoming crackling lines of darkness, but he enveloped her and pushed her back, until finally, she struggled beneath him, in human form, staring daggers of hatred. He lay across her, nonchalantly resting his arms across her overlarge breasts, smiling lazily.

'Let me go.' She said, angrily.

His smirk twitched at the corner.

'Let me go!'

He raised his eyebrows.

'What do you want?!'

He said nothing.

'You're disgusting. Like a rapist. Admit it. You're only doing this for your own self-esteem.' She spat.

'Rapist. Hmm. Now that is an idea.' He said, thoughtfully.

'I'm not afraid of you.'

'Then why are you shaking?'

The expression on his face infuriated her. The smug, self-satisfaction. Also, his shark-teeth were disturbingly close. _You're going to have to do something a bit more offensive if you want to get out of this one, cher. _That's right, I'm going to have to go on the offensive.

She reached up, stretching her neck out past human proportions and bit him on the shoulder, sinking her jaw in so far it almost melded with the flesh. Blood, chilled by the cold winds up on the cathedral, flowed into her mouth, as an enraged roar filled her ears and the shoulder beneath her disintegrated into a liquid nothingness and flowed out between her lips. This time she was expecting the attack, and she willed her body into shards of the same substance, which stabbed and slashed into the liquid mass above her, which sought to gather her up into one place and imprison her. Every opening she took, every opportunity to dart out of the way, splitting her consciousness into hundreds of fragments. This went on some time, until the coils lost all sense of direction and began to condense back into an anthropoid form. Confused, she did the same. When they coalesced, she was sitting astride him. He had his arms behind his head, forming a pillow and his legs nonchalantly crossed.

'I can keep this up all night, you know.' She said, leaning forwards.

'So can I. It seemed a waste of energy to continue. Did my blood taste good to you?'

She licked her lips, remembering. 'I suppose.'

'Enjoy it. I shall not allow you to strike me again.'

That furious thing inside her reared its head and made her snarl. The sheer… arrogance… Oh, she wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. But she'd already tried fighting, and that didn't seem work, or at least it only worked when he wasn't expecting the cute little police girl to supply the first blow. The trick was to surprise him, do something he wasn't expecting.

_Well, you could pretend to kiss him._

I could… eurgh… I can't believe I even.. wait, that's the last thing he'd expect. He might be so surprised that I could get away.

_I was only kidding! Crazy girl. No, don't! Stupid, stupid suggestion.. He'll eat your head._

Therefore, Seras Victoria proceeded to close her eyes and attempt to plant one on her sire. Unfortunately, Alucard took this as an attack and she found herself face first in black liquid, which rapidly enclosed her, then seemed to twitch in surprise, change it's mind, recede and form Alucard again, sitting up and looking confused (he had dropped the grin).

'What are you doing?'

Embarrassed, she lowered her head. 'Uhm..'

_It was a silly idea. Aha, but it worked, he's surprised, you can run._

Yeah that's a point, I can run..

She had one knee off the floor, when he caught her wrist.

_So much for that one._

'I said, what are you doing?'

'Trying to get away, what does it look like?'

'That's not what I mean, and you know it.'

'Let me go! You've had your fun.'

'Police girl…'

'My name is SERAS VICTORIA!'

This time, she didn't even feel herself changing. She simply plunged into him with the intent to hurt, to slash and stab and cut. She was nothing but a ball of rage, bent on destroying, not caring if she was damaged herself. She would make him pay for changing her into a monster and then neglecting her, casting her away like a broken toy. They left bubbling grey streaks of melted marble across the surface of the balcony and knocked a section of heavy stone guard rail over the edge, where it fell to the ground below, knocking the arm off a grecian statue on the way down. Tentacles, both sharp and sinuous thrashed and wound around each other, seeking the supremacy. Some part of her pointed out in slightly frightened french accent that there was no way she could win, he was older and more powerful, but she did not care in the slightest. She was nothing but vengeance, inexhaustable vengeance. Once it began to fade, she began to change back. Curiously, so did he. They lay on the edge of the precipice created by the missing chunk of marble. Far below burnt out cars smoked on the street. Alucard wrapped an arm around her neck and pulled her away from the edge. He was panting. So was she.

'Are you ready to start again?' He said. He was no longer angry, but the light of battle was in his eyes. It was a look she had seen before when Father Anderson was near, eagerness at the prospect of fighting and defeating a worthy opponent. That was probably some kind of compliment. She tried to lift her head, to nod, and to change again, but she couldn't move. She shook her head.

'Not yet.'

'Not yet?' He laughed. 'Come, aren't you angry at me, the one who changed you against your will into a creature of the night? Death or immortality, what choice is that for a young girl? Everyone is afraid of dying, all humans cling on to life, ignoring all suffering, bringing their children into the world, for just a taste of life. Don't you want to rend me limb from limb and absorb my power, destroy me for corrupting you?'

She nodded, weakly, and tried again to change, but the urge was no longer in her. She was empty of rage and tired.

'Exhausted so quickly, Pol..'

She slapped him across the face. No claws this time, just a woman's slap.

'My n…'

'I know, I know.' He interrupted. 'Your name is Seras Victoria.'

So condescending. I have to change. Change! Change… He never runs out of energy like this.

_It is a human weakness, I suppose._

Yes, and I'm not a human, am I? Not any more. It's all in my mind. This body is no more my natural form than the one he wears is his. I want to take up my natural form. Let me be free!

New strength flooded into her. She changed, her fingers becoming claws and then black lines that cut at the very air. She let the rage overtake her, becoming no more than an animal. She became confused, when she found that she was fighting nothing. Alucard had become insubstantial as smoke. Some new trick he was playing. Well, two could play at that game. She willed her body to become just as spread out and disconnected as his. She swirled in the wind, but held herself together, then plunged at him.

The two smoke clouds mingled and flowed into each other, neither having enough substance to do the other any damage. Seras panicked when she realised exactly how close they were to each other. Every particle of her being was juxtaposed with one of his. It was a deep and disturbing intimacy.

_Seras Victoria._

_Seras Victoria. I know you hear me._

_I hate you! _

She tried to withdraw, but every part of her was imprisoned by a part of him. They would only be able to separate by mutual consent. Worse still, inside her mind she could now hear the echoes of the trapped and tormented souls within him. They screamed in a hundred different languages, begging to be released, if only to hunt on his behalf, to taste once again the clear air and to no longer be subsumed, pushed to the back of his psyche by his overwhelming satanic will.

_I will hold you here until you stop attacking me. We are wasting time. Our master is waiting for us. Behave yourself, Seras Victoria. _

She fell back, cradled now instead of imprisoned, and let the anger drain away. As it did so, the intimacy became more obvious. They were inside one another, closer than it was possible for any human being ever to be. The screams were now in her head, they were the screams of her servants and she felt amusement to feel them trapped inside her, unable to ever escape. She felt powerful, immense. This was how a vampire should truly be.

_Cher, you must wake up. I do not want to be absorbed._

No, can't let it...him..

Immediately, horror seized her, and everything that was left of her humanity rebelled. She was enjoying it! No, no, that must never happen! Her whole being cringed away, and Alucard released her. She became human again and found herself backing away from the cloud.

Will I be like that? One day? Never…

_Afraid so.._

I will won't I?

She covered her mouth in horror as the thick, foggy cloud condensed into the form of Alucard, smiling and reaching for her.

'Seras Victoria! You were doing so well. Accept what you are.'

She shook her head, and turned and ran across the balcony and leapt over the edge, not caring about the sharp jolting pain that went up through her legs when she landed in the road far below. It began to heal itself immediately anyway. And so, she went on running, her only desire to get as far away as possible from the creature she was destined to be.

Alucard leaned over an intact section of rail and watched her go.

She would come around eventually. They always did. It was no concern of his. Besides, somewhere out in the city, his master was calling him.

End


End file.
